The green lines began to form figures, crude at first, then sharp and regular. You could store an entire planet’s treasury in one of these disks, Lovegrove told him. Al’s ears pricked up at that. Then he was aware of something being not quite right. A presence, close by.
He hadn’t really thought about the others. Those who had been there when he came into Lovegrove’s body. The same ones who had deserted him in the disused shop. But if he closed his eyes, and shut out the sounds of the city, he could hear the distant babelesque clamour. It came from the nightmare domain, the pleas and promises to be brought forth, to live and breathe again.
That same perception gave him a most peculiar vision of the city. Walls of thick black shadow amid a universal greyness. People moved through it all, distorted whispers echoing all around, audible ghosts. Some
Al opened his eyes and looked down the road. A section of the barrier was folding down neatly. One of the bullet cars drew to a halt beside it. The gull-wing door slid up, and inside was a proper car, a genuine American convertible wearing the streamlined image of the New California vehicle like a piece of clothing. It was low-slung, with a broad hood and lots of chrome trim. Al didn’t recognize the model, it was more modern than anything in the twenties, and his memory of the thirties and forties wasn’t so hot.
The man in the red leather driving seat nodded amicably. “You’d better get in,” he said. “The cops are going to catch you if you stay out on the street. They’re a mite worked up about us.”
Al glanced up and down the sidewalk, then shrugged and climbed in.
Inside, the image of the bullet car tinted the air like a stained soap bubble.
“The name’s Bernhard Allsop,” the man behind the steering column said. He swung the car out into the road. Behind them the barrier rose up smoothly. “I always wanted me an Oldsmobile like this beauty, never could afford it back when I was living in Tennessee.”
“And this is real now?”
“Who knows, boy? But it sure feels real. And I’m mighty grateful for the opportunity to ride one. You might say I thought it had passed me by.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.”
“Caused a bit of commotion back there, boy. Them pigs is riled good and proper. We were monitoring what passes for their radio band these days.”
“I just wanted a cab, that’s all. Someone tried to get smart.”
“There’s a trick to riding around this town without the police knowing. Be happy to show you how sometime.”
“Appreciate it. Where are we going?”
Bernhard Allsop grinned and winked. “Gonna take you to meet the rest of the group. Always need volunteers, they’re kinda hard to come by.” He laughed, a high-pitched stuttering yodel reminding Al of a piglet.
“They left me behind, Bernhard. I don’t have anything to say to them.”
“Yeah, well. You know how it was. You weren’t altogether there, boy. I said we should have taken you along with us. Kin is kin, even though it ain’t exactly family here, know what I mean? Glad to see you came through in the end, though.”
“Thank you.”
“So what’s your name, boy?”
“Al Capone.”
The Oldsmobile swerved as Bernhard flinched. His knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on the wheel; then he risked an anxious sideways glance at his passenger. Where before there had been a twenty-year-old man dressed in a set of dark red overalls, there was now a debonair Latin-ethnic character in a double-breasted blue suit and pigeon-grey fedora.
“You shitting me?”
Al Capone reached into his suit and produced a miniature baseball bat. A now highly apprehensive Bernhard Allsop watched it grow to full size. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out what the black stains around the end were.
“No,” Al said politely. “I’m not shitting you.”
“Holy Christ.” He tried to laugh. “Al Capone.”
“Yeah.”
“Holy Christ. Al Capone in my car! Ain’t that something?”
“That’s certainly something, yeah.”
“It’s a pleasure, Al. Christ, I mean that. A real pleasure. Hell, you were the best, Al, the top man. Everybody knew that. Run a bit of moonshine in my day. Nothing much, a few slugs, is all. But you, you ran it for a whole city. Christ! Al Capone.” He slapped the steering wheel with both hands, chortling. “Damn, but I can’t wait to see their faces when I bring you in.”
“Bring me in to what, Bernhard?”
“The group, Al, the group. Hey, you don’t mind if I call you Al, do you? I don’t want to give no offence, or nothing. Not to you.”
“That’s okay, Bernhard, all my friends call me Al.”
“Your
“What does this group of yours do, exactly, Bernhard?”
“Why, get larger, of course. That’s all we can do for now. Unity is strength.”
“You a Communist, Bernhard?”
“Hey! No way, Al. I’m an American. I hate the filthy Reds.”
“Sounds like you are to me.”
“No, you got it all wrong. The more of us there are, the better chance we stand, the stronger we are. Like an army; a whole load of people together, they got the strength to make themselves felt. That’s what I meant, Al. Honest.”
“So what does the group have in mind for when they get big and powerful?”
Bernhard gave Al another sideways glance, puzzled this time. “To get out of here, Al. What else?”
“To get out of the city?”
“No. To take the planet away.” He jabbed a thumb straight up. “From that. From the sky.”
Al cast a sceptical eye upwards. The skyscrapers were flashing past on either side. Their size didn’t bother him so much now. Starship drives still speckled the azure sky, streaked flashbulbs taking a long time to pop. He couldn’t see the odd little moon anymore. “Why?” he asked reasonably.
“Damn it, Al. Can’t you feel it? The emptiness. Man, it’s horrible. All that huge nothing trying to suck you up and swallow you whole.” He gulped, his voice lowering. “The sky is like
“Now you’re sounding like a preacher man, Bernhard.”
“Well maybe I am a little bit. It’s a smart man who knows when he’s beat. I don’t mind saying it to you, Al. I’m frightened of the beyond. I ain’t never going back there. No siree.”
“So you’re going to move the world away?”
“Damn right.”
“That’s one fucking big ambition you’ve got there, Bernhard. I wish you a lot of luck. Now just drop me off at this intersection coming up here. I’ll find my own way about town now.”
“You mean you ain’t going to pitch in and help us?” an incredulous Bernhard asked.
“Nope.”
“But you gotta feel it, too, Al. Even you. We all can. They never stop begging you, all those other lost souls. Ain’t you afraid of going back there?”
“Can’t say as I am. It never really bothered me any while I was there first time around.”
“Never bothered . . . ! Holy Christ, you are one tough sonofabitch, Al.” He put his head back and gave a rebel yell. “Listen, you mothers, being dead don’t bother Al Capone none! Goddamn!”
“Where is this safe place you’re taking the planet to, anyhow?”
“Dunno, Al. Just follow Judy Garland over the rainbow, I guess. Anywhere where there ain’t no sky.”
